Final Cut Pro X is nominally aimed at a user such as myself that does video occasionally both at home and at work. From home I am one of the, what video professional call somewhat derisively, Youtube set. At work it is a one, occasionally two cameras and straightforward editing which I don’t do that often. I somewhat discounted the professional issues because at this stage you would not be rushing to use the program until after some training at at least after the initial patches.
But even for me FCP X is problematic. I get the feeling that it is trying to be too clever. I liked the previous track based system where you could park you video and move it around. It is not an issue if gaps occur because you will see the back holes as you preview the video so I am not enamoured with the magnetic tracks. They work but do they solve a real problem?
Same with meta data. I don’t use that many clips and the one I do are related to specific projects in the folder structure I devise. I don’t really need a global library with meta data.
Background rendering especially with text/tiles used, drags performance of my 4 core i7 iMac to a crawl at times. The titles themselves have dubious inspectors which a more fiddly to use then the inspectors in previous editions of FCP. In some cases they panels just keep closing up and not sure what is being selected.
The text in the title renders a bit fuzzy. I will be round tripping to After Effects in future for text and where the control is more interface control is more consistent.
You need to leave the auto audio helpers well alone at this stage. Somehow they detected a hum which I clicked to fix but that just took out some key frequencies and there was no hum. The auto music improvement option just pushed the track into the red. I still need to see if audiounit plugsins are supported.
When I did finish the movie I tried the export to Youtube but that failed. So I did the standard export and browser upload.
Lets hope it will improve……..
MIDI control: I initially thought that MIDI control with the OP-1 was modal. That is the OP-1 only sends out MIDI notes while in MIDI mode. (Accessed by SHIFT+COM / 1 [CTRL]) This is not the case.
The MIDI control page can be use to set channel and knob settings and in this mode the note keys send out note on and off messages. However if you drop back into OP-1 mode the sequencer data is also sent out to the specified MIDI channel (or the default channel 1) so the OP-1 sequencers can control soft synths. The OP-1 synths will be playing at the same time so their channel output can be set to 0 in the Master page though the option is there to record OP-1 audio at the same time into your DAW.
Virus control: This method also works with the Access Virus when using the Live template provided by Access. Which is really great because I much prefer the Virus sounds to the OP-1. It does make the OP-1 an expensive controller but adding in the OP-1 synths will make a more layered sound.
There is one strange thing though. If I select channels 2 or 3 or 4 on the OP-1 these will access the correct chnnels in the Virus but will also send note events to channel 1. There are invisible notes because if the channel selected on the OP-1 is 2 then using MIDI Monitor only channel 2 notes are appearing as output from the OP-1. Channel 1 in Live also showed the notes. This was solved just as I was writing this post by unplugging the additional MIDI cable which went from the MOTU Ultralite audio interface to the Virus.
Crossbow or Gun?: The central feature of the OP-1 is the tape recorder which records (obviously) the audio but also has a lot of editing and tape manipulation features. It is well done however is it really the best way to put together a song? At this point in time I can make a lot of strange noises with the tape recordings but nothing really usable. I can see some use in creating some unique sounds but I am not really getting it for a song creation method.
Tip: It is mentioned lightly in the manual by putting the OP-1 into USB mode does allow you to create a folders under the Synthesizer and Drum folders into which you can drop you AIFF files. When the OP-1 is then set back to OP-1 mode these should be read by OP-1 for use by selecting them as a sound source.
I found that the OP-1 endless controller which has note length settings and the ability to specify long notes is the most useful of the sequencers with longer samples. Sort drum style samples and notes can work with any of the sequencers.
After some consideration and watching many videos I decided to get the Access Virus Snow. (Awave in South Yarra sold the unit. I can recommend the store and they are keen to get you trying the many synths on display.) While the most expensive of the synths I considered, the Virus just looked the most comprehensive and came with software integration. For what I can use it for and afford the Snow was the best option in the Access range.
I really like the sound and the variety. The setup documentation is a bit scattered in various guides, song files, and manuals but once I grasped the 4 channels to 1 instance of the Snow it worked. I use the MOTU Ultralite for my soundcard rather than the Virus because there are more routing options. The documentation also came with a guide by Harold Scarr on “Programming Analogue Synths” which is good starting point for Virus programming. I just wish they had updated it for the latest Virus iterations.
Ableton Live is my preferred standard DAW because all the connections are obvious. There are is a MIDI track for each of the 4 parts which send their MIDI to different MIDI channels (though they could be the same) in a track which contains the plugin.
Five12′s Numerology can run the Virus plug in. What you need to do is have four note generators each on a different channel and one AU plug-in for the Virus. You need to manually connect a wire from the MIDI out of the generators to the MIDI in of the plug in.
Nodal can send the notes over a IAC connection to the Virus with its instruments to the four channels but I find it easier to use Live as a central router for MIDI and as a host for the Virus AU. Speaking of Nodal I am playing around with drum patterns like the Amen Brother break to see how Nodal can work at creating standard patterns and then being a starting point for variations. It works in a stardard file but I failed to get MIDI triggering of instruments in separate Nodal files which is said to be possible.
Finally got my Teenage Engineering OP-1. Great design, a few bugs with usable if not spectacular sounds.
A few days with the OP-1 . I also uploaded some presets:
